Monday, February 29, 2016

Josef Koudelka

Josef Koudelka

Josef Koudelka
is one of the more important Czech photo journalists of
the 20th Century. In August of 1968, he witnessed and photographed the
Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague. For the next 7 days, Koudelka captured
the protest, violence and historical impact in a series of dramatic
photographs that shared the event with the world. For years, he went
uncredited as the photographer of these images out of fear for his life.
He even won the Robert Capa Gold Medal for the work anonymously.
Interestingly this would be the only conflict news event that Koudelka
would ever cover.
In this video we'll take a look at Koudelka's career. His early work
with the theater greatly influenced much of his later work including the
Prague invasion, Gypsy studies and later landscape images.
Koudlka is a brilliant photographer. For all of his talented he went
largely uncredited for most of his career.
Book: Koudelka: Nationally Doubtful (Art Institute of Chicago)

I have to shoot three cassettes of film a day, even when not 'photographing', in order to keep the eye in practice. - Josef Koudelka

“The biggest lesson in photography is that from negative we make a positive"
Josef Koudelka

“What matters most to me is to take photographs; to continue taking
them and not to repeat myself. To go further, to go as far as I can.” –
Josef Koudelka

“I am not interested in repetition. I don’t want to reach the point
from where I wouldn’t know how to go further. It’s good to set limits
for oneself, but there comes a moment when we must destroy what we have
constructed.” – Josef Koudelka

“If I am dissatisfied, it’s simply because good photos are few and far between. A good photo is a miracle.” – Josef Koudelka

“I have to shoot three cassettes of film a day, even when not
‘photographing’, in order to keep the eye in practice.” – Josef Koudelka

“Sometimes I photograph without looking through the viewfinder. I
have mastered that well enough, it is almost as if I were looking
through it.” – Josef Koudelka

“When I photograph, I do not think much. If you looked at my contacts
you would ask yourself: “What is this guy doing?” But I keep working
with my contacts and with my prints, I look at them all the time. I
believe that the result of this work stays in me and at the moment of
photographing it comes out, without my thinking of it.” – Josef Koudelka

“I don’t pretend to be an intellectual or a philosopher. I just look.” – Josef Koudelka

“I photograph only something that has to do with me, and I never did
anything that I did not want to do. I do not do editorial and I never do
advertising. No, my freedom is something I do not give away easily.” –
Josef Koudelka

“I don’t like captions. I prefer people to look at my pictures and invent their own stories.” – Josef Koudelka
“I never stay in one country more than three months. Why? Because I
was interested in seeing, and if I stay longer I become blind.” – Josef
Koudelka

“My photographs are proof of what happened. When I go to Russia,
sometimes I meet ex-soldiers… They say, ‘We came to liberate you….’ I
say: ‘Listen, I think it was quite different. I saw people being
killed.’ They say: No. We never… no shooting. No. No.’ So I can show
them my Prague 1968 photographs and say, ‘Listen, these are my pictures.
I was there.’ And they have to believe me.” – Josef Koudelka

“The changes taking place in this part of Europe are enormous and
very rapid. One world is disappearing. I am trying to photograph what’s
left. I have always been drawn to what is ending, what will soon no
longer exist.” – Josef Koudelka

“It never seemed important to me that my photos be published. It’s
important that I take them. There were periods where I didn’t have
money, and I would imagine that someone would come to me and say: ‘Here
is money, you can go do your photography, but you must not show it.’ I
would have accepted right away. On the other hand, if someone had come
to me saying: ‘Here is money to do your photography, but after your
death it must be destroyed,’ I would have refused.” – Josef Koudelka

“When I first started to take photographs in Czechoslovakia, I met
this old gentleman, this old photographer, who told me a few practical
things. One of the things he said was, “Josef, a photographer works on
the subject, but the subject works on the photographer.” – Josef
Koudelka

“I would like to see everything, look at everything, I want to be the view itself.” – Josef Koudelka